


The Reddest of Poppies

by tristesses



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-04
Updated: 2012-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-28 21:25:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/312330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our intrepid time travelers visit a greenhouse planet where the flowers have some curious properties. (Or, a different take on the sex-pollen cliche.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reddest of Poppies

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 10/28/2008.

The crop fields of the planet Alessofrass are rolling blankets of white flowers, speckled with red, similar to poppies in color and appearance but much more potent, and in turn, much more valuable. Add to this the fact that Alessofrassan poppies only grow in specific, peculiar areas around the planet’s poles, where the aurora borealis dances in flashes of vibrant color under the blue-green sky, and you’ve got yourself quite a vacation spot. If you can afford it, that is. But the lucky thing about traveling with a Time Lord is that money doesn’t matter much.

Donna’s girlishly cheerful today, which is nice compared to the snit she was in yesterday (it really is _not_ the Doctor’s fault that the TARDIS chooses to make ice cream only in flavors like leaf and banana and not good old-fashioned chocolate). She flings her hands up to the sky, inhaling the scent of the poppies deeply, and declares, “This is the best place you’ve taken me yet, Doctor.”

“Is it?” he inquires, ambling along beside her, hands in his pockets. “I didn’t take you for a nature person.”

“I appreciate a nice flower just as much as any other girl, thank you,” she informs him with dignity.

“I don’t know,” he muses, surveying the fields and giving her a sly look at her out of the corner of his eye. “It could do with some running. Ow!” She smacks his shoulder, eyes fiery.

“I am _through_ with running. And jumping, and chasing, and any other strenuous physical activity that always happens around you.”

“Well, that narrows it down,” he teases, “what’s there left to do? Braid flowers in your hair? That’s _very_ strenuous activity, or at least I think so.” Secretly, he is actually thinking that the poppies would complement her very nicely, the white and red highlighting the tones of her skin and hair, respectively, and he’d almost use the term beautiful except that’s far too soppy and distinctly un-mate-like to apply to Donna. She’d probably smack him if she heard.

“Like you can braid,” she snorts, and the Doctor realizes he’s gazing at her without watching where he’s walking and nearly trips over a root cluster. “With that mop of yours?”

His hand flies up to pat his hair protectively. “What d’you mean? I like my hair!”

Donna scrutinizes him critically, and he eyes her nervously, hand still hovering over his gelled head.

“I think it needs a bit of color,” she decides, and after that comes a rigorous chase through the poppies involving a lot of zigzagging, ducking, shrieking, and trampling of expensive flowers, and which culminates in a near-tackle by the Doctor that leaves them in a pile of limbs, rolling to a halt at the bottom of a softly-sloping hill, still giggling, still panting, staring up at the flickering lights in the sky.

“So who’s chasing who now?” she asks him haughtily. “ _You’re_ the one that ran away!”

He tilts his head to look at her, smirking. “You’re the one that followed. It was self-defense.”

“Self-defense?” she asks in faux outrage. “You complete _muppet_ – I’ll self-defense you!” and she lunges for him, a poppy poised like a weapon in her fist. The Doctor flails under her assault, rather ineffectively, for despite his long limbs and superior Time Lord physiology he’s no match for Donna Noble’s glower.

“There,” she says, satisfied, patting the blossom perched precariously on his hair, then sneezes hugely and rolls away from him. He shakes the flower off his head and runs his hand through his hair; the poppy left a dusting of fine golden pollen along his scalp and on Donna’s hands. He sniffs it (not always a good idea, but the Doctor firmly believes in hands-on science), and it tingles pleasantly in his nostrils, like it should. No reason Donna should be so sensitive to it, except maybe natural human allergies...?

A little cog turns in the back of the Doctor’s head. He makes an abrupt, impulsive decision.

“Oi!” Donna proclaims, and sniffs loudly. “Nature! Can’t get away from it, it’s everywhere. What’s wrong with you?”

“Er, Donna,” he begins, staring at his pollen-powdered palms in horror, “did you inhale this?”

She leans over his shoulder to peer at his hands. He is acutely aware of the weight of her hair on his shoulders, her breath against his ear.

“Yeah,” she says, puzzled, curiously short of breath. “Why? What is it?”

He angles his head slightly to face her, but he can’t make eye contact quite yet. And is he blushing? Is _she_ blushing?

“Er, well – thing is, Alessofrassan poppies produce this sort of pollen, it’s an evolutionary tactic developed by the environment to encourage – I mean, the natives of this planet don’t have an in-built desire to repro – I just – the pollen’s an aphrodisiac!”

He speaks entirely too fast and is also completely positive he’s blushing. Donna bends even closer – he can feel the press of her breasts against his back, _oh_ – and enunciates in his ear, “This is _sex pollen?_ ”

“For all intents and purposes,” he mumbles, very ashamed, and just a little aroused, but then Donna licks his earlobe and slides her hands under his arms, along his ribs, wrapping herself around his torso, and murmurs, “Well done, spaceman, you’ve made a right mess of things, haven’t you?”

Her reprimand is a little difficult to take seriously when she’s nearly rubbing herself along his spine like that.

He cranes his head around to kiss her, twisting in her embrace, and she snogs him with a single-mindedness that is very, very Donna. Their teeth smack together, and it hurts, but neither of them care particularly; they’re too caught up in sensation – Donna’s teeth nibbling his lower lip, his fingers tangled in her hair at the base of her skull, pulling her even closer so she’s nearly in his lap and he can concentrate on her mouth, wet and human and tinted with the medicinal taste of chapstick, and the slide of her skin under his palms as he strokes her back, sides, belly, breasts.

She’s desperately trying to unbutton his shirt (“Just rip it, Donna,” he tells her in between kisses) when he brushes her nipple with his thumb, caressing it through the thin fabric of her bra, and she gasps a little and allows him to help her claw off her blouse, the collar getting entangled in her hair. He abandons the blouse and dives for the white skin at her sternum, kissing and licking, fumbling with her bra clasp in the back, while she mutters curses and struggles above him.

He’s lapping at her nipple, teasing and nipping, when she frees herself and shoves him away; for a moment he’s completely disoriented at the sudden absence of her warmth, then she growls, “Too many clothes,” and tears the buttons off his shirt, baring his chest to her.

He’s still in his suit jacket when she pushes him to the ground and straddles him, biting at his collarbone, those clever hands going everywhere and taunting him – he’s leaning back on his elbows, head thrown back and eyes half shut, as she nips at his bony hip, dragging her tongue along the trail of fuzz that disappears into the waistband of his trousers.

“That’s more like it,” he breathes, nearly trembling, and she arches an eyebrow at him eloquently, clearly saying, “I’m not doing all the work, Mars boy,” then goes and ruins her point by cupping him through the pinstripe fabric and stroking him expertly, the heat of her mouth on the skin directly above her moving hand, nibbling and licking.

The Doctor makes a strangled noise in his throat – it’s been _so long_ since he’s allowed anyone this close – and nearly cries out when Donna ceases her ministrations and sits back. She’s looking at him with lust-darkened eyes, but he can tell from the set of her shoulders just how apprehensive she is. Still so self-conscious, even after this.

“Donna,” he says – it’s more like a whisper, husky and low in his throat – and holds his hand out to her. She puts her lips to his fingers, casually, like she’s operating off instinct, and sucks lightly on the tips. The lull in their frenetic movements makes him all too aware of the quiet: a faint breeze, the hiss of the aurora roaring at a frequency only his ears can pick up, their rapid inhalations, breathing nearly in sync. He cups her cheek, watching her intently, and she tilts her head back and looks him in the eyes. That’s all it takes; he lunges forward to kiss her again and ends up colliding with her forehead, and she attacks him too, opening his trousers with clumsy fingers as he hikes up her skirt, sliding his fingers under her knickers and yanking them down around her knees.

“Impatient,” she accuses, and moves to straddle him as he strokes her, watching her eyelids flutter as he bumps that sensitive knot of nerves with a nail. Then she pauses, poised warm and wet above him, and their voices overlap –

“It’s just you’re so _skinny_ – ”

“Come _on_ , Donna!”

She sinks down on him and he convulsively wraps his arms around her, pulling her against him, burying his face in her shoulder, licking the salt from her skin as she clenches sweet and hot around him and he moans, “ _Oh._ Oh, _Donna_ – ”

“You’re bloody freezing!” she cries, and shudders with a groan, and grinds so deliciously against him that he digs his nails into the curve of her arse and prays that he lasts, rocking against her and moaning discombobulated sentences that consist of the words “Donna”, “fuck”, and “please” in a variety of intergalactic languages. She whimpers and gasps, things he’d scarcely imagined her saying to him (“Fuck me Doctor, oh, oh, fucking God, yes there right there _please!_ ”) until she seizes around him with a screech and nearly every synapse in his typically-rational mind explodes and shudders with the force of his climax. _Glorious!_ his nerves sing, or maybe he gasps it out loud, he’s not sure and quite frankly he doesn’t care.

Donna clambers off him and collapses in the poppies next to him, her skirt wrinkled and stained with crushed petals. The Doctor reclines and takes account of himself: jacket flung a few feet away but still containing his screwdriver and other accoutrements, shirt still on but torn, trousers down to his gawky knees (he remedies that; it’s hard to run with a great length of fabric wrapped around your ankles), hair mussed. He’ll have to fix that later. Little sparks of pleasure are still running through his body; he rather thinks his legs are too shaky to stand.

Donna’s pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes, lying limp and gorgeous in the flora. The Doctor watches her fondly; a muscle in her side twitches as the wind blows a slender green stalk against her.

“Bloody hell,” she says eventually.

“Yeah,” the Doctor agrees. “Fun, though.”

“You prat.”

“Ah, that sounds more like my Donna.”

“ _Your_ Donna?”

“Well, I just – ”

“Assuming a bit much, don’t you think?”

The Doctor blinks, slightly hurt, then sees the smirk she’s attempting to hide under her arm.

“You don’t fool me, Donna Noble,” he informs her. She grins at him, an infectiously happy grin, and he beams back.

From over the hill comes the hyper, overexcited chatter typical of tour guides across the galaxy. Donna and the Doctor freeze, staring at each other, as if being still will make them invisible.

“The Alessofrassan people have been cultivating their poppy fields for centuries,” the voice exclaims. “Why are they so important, you ask?” No one had. “The pollen of these poppies, when properly processed, creates a very important medical compound used for fighting the plagues of this planet!”

Donna turns her head very slowly and stares at the Doctor. He clears his throat quietly and avoids her gaze.

“Get your clothes,” he mouths at her, reaching for his jacket. She sits, matching him in volume as she clasps her bra. He can feel her glare even with his back turned. The guide crests the hill, and they can see him, a squat, rotund little man with stubby fingers sprouting off multiple hands.

“I say! Who are you? What are you – _are you shagging in my poppies?_ ”

“Right, now we run!” cries the Doctor, and grabs Donna’s hand as he follows his own advice.

They end up stumbling into the TARDIS, quite literally smacking against the blue wood, and the Doctor makes a dash for the door, pulled up short by Donna grabbing his collar. He turns to her, an expression of doom on his face. She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows accusingly.

“Medical pollen?” she inquires acidly.

“Er – sorry,” the Doctor says sheepishly, feeling a bit like a child caught eating out of the jam jar.

“Sorry?” she snaps, and he braces himself for a storm; nothing is quite so fearful as the wrath of Donna Noble. “You could have just asked, you know!”

“What?” The Doctor is gaping at her.

“I _said_ , if you wanted to shag me you could’ve just asked!”

“Are you serious?” She just looks at him.

“What about – us being mates? Just mates? I thought – ” A grin is blooming on the Doctor’s face.

“You thought wrong, spaceman,” she says, grabs him by the lapels, and yanks him into the TARDIS. He yelps but is silenced by Donna, by her lips and her hands and her wonderful Donna self, and the blue doors shut themselves smugly on the placid poppies.


End file.
